This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival
material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are
physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available
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William Belvidere Meares was a physician and planter of Davidson County, N.C. The collection includes letters of William Belvidere Meares, his wife Mary Thomas
Exum Meares, their children, and other family members; genealogical and biographical
information; clippings; writings; certificates and other miscellaneous papers; and
photographs. Included are letters, 1850s, from Adelaide Savage Meares, sister of William
Belvidere Meares who later married Moses John De Rosset, to Mary Thomas Exum Meares
about family and social life in eastern North Carolina; letters, 1863 and 1966, from
Martha Exum Ransom (Mrs. Matt W. Ransom) to her sister, Mary Thomas Exum Meares, about
social life and hard times in North Carolina; letters, 1870s, from his parents and
others to Frederick P. Meares, containing family news, advice on the importance of
education and on behavior relating to "the Negro cadet" at his school, and news of his father's attempt to sell his plantation because of
the difficulty of hiring labor and the dullness of plantation life; and other letters.
Also included are a labor contract, 1867, between four laborers and William Belvidere
Meares; photographs of Meares family members; and other items.

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants,
as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the William Belvidere Meares Papers #2058-z, Southern
Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Esther E. Meares of Asheville, N.C., in 1940; from Mr. and Mrs. Joseph
Meares of Asheville, N.C., in August 1949; and from Emily Gordon of Palmyra, Va.,
in November 2004 (Acc. 99989).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or
confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy
laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. §
132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of
State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.).
Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to
identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent
of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under
common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's
private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable
person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no
responsibility.

The following terms from
Library of Congress Subject
Headings
suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the
entire collection; the terms do
not usually represent
discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or
items.

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online catalog.

William Belvidere Meares (1826-1896), physician and planter of Davidson County, N.C.,
was the fifth son of Catherine Grady Davis and William Belvidere Meares (1787-1841)
of Wilmington, N.C. Meares was educated at the Bingham School in Hillsborough and
graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1846. After he received a medical
degree from Jefferson College in Philadelphia, he returned to Wilmington. In 1850,
Meares married Mary Thomas Exum (1833-1883) of Northampton County, N.C. Mary Thomas
Exum Meares's sister Martha married Matt W. (Matthew Whitaker) Ransom (1826-1904).

William Belvidere Meares volunteered for service in the Confederate Army and was commissioned
in June 1861 as assistant surgeon of the 20th North Carolina Regiment. Meares transferred
to the staff of his brother-in-law, General Matt Ransom, and served throughout the
rest of the war as Ransom's aide-de-camp. In May 1862, William Belvidere Meares moved
his family from Wilmington to Davidson County, N.C., where he purchased a plantation
that had previously belonged to Governor John W. Ellis. When the war ended, the family
chose to remain there rather than return to Wilmington.

The collection includes letters of William Belvidere Meares, his wife Mary Thomas Exum Meares, their children, and other family members; genealogical and biographical information;
clippings; writings; certificates and other miscellaneous papers; and photographs. Included are letters, 1850s, from Adelaide Savage Meares, who was the sister of William Belvidere Meares and who later married Moses John De Rosset (1838-1881), to Mary Thomas Exum Meares about family and social life in eastern North Carolina; two letters from Martha Exum Ransom (Mrs. Matt W. Ransom) to her sister, Mary Thomas Meares, one in 1863 about social life and another, 1866, about hard times in North Carolina;
letters, 1870s, from his parents and others to Frederick P. Meares, containing family news, advice on the importance of education and the need to improve his school performance, advice on behavior relating to "the Negro cadet" at his school, and news of his father's attempt to sell his plantation because of the difficulty of hiring labor and the dullness of plantation life; and
a letter of sympathy, 1896, from Matt W. Ransom to Willie Meares. Also included is a labor contract, 1867, between four laborers and William Belvidere Meares.

The addition of November 2004 contains a few miscellaneous papers and clippings as
well as photographs of Meares family members. The papers and photographs mostly relate to Joseph Exum Meares, Antoinette Adickes Meares, and their children.